Protector

I am a visual artist, mother of two children aged 12 and 4, and co-founder of the MeWe arts collective. I intend to use this site to explore how my personal experiences as a mother informs my arts practice. To reflect upon the maternal in relationship to memory, loss, and mental health in particu…Read more

2 Responses to “Protector”

Frances Earnshaw

You have a wonderful sense of line, in you drawing. I am looking at how the line is searched out, the rightness of it, and also the cheeky anarchy of all these cocks! and the breasts, and the children’s hands. Out of sexuality come children, a fact blind-sided in much of male culture. Mad love, sex, struck-by-her-beauty and all that, is what is looked at, in much of art.

I like this image of protection. I have been thinking about a very ancient image for a while, which is described in one of my favourite books about ancient peoples. There was a very long phase when early houses had the body of a baby buried beneath the hearth. Many babies would have died in those days. I tend to think, therefore, this would not have been a sacrificed baby. But who can tell after a couple of thousand years. I would like to make a piece of art touching on this theme. One finding was of a newborn baby beneath the hearth, wrapped in a swan’s wing.

I really enjoyed drawing those cocks. It suddenly struck me, why don’t I play around with gender more in my drawings. I am a mother of two boys…

I was also thinking about something what Eti said about the use of children’s bodies in arts practice in this post (http://www.eggwombheadmoon.com/israel-museum-bathroom/): “The two images made me think about the contrast between how over used the female figure is in representation and art in contrast with the figure of the child and how potentially vilified a mother might be when using the bodies of her children in her art.” This is just a start, a beginning, but wanted to play around with some ideas about my own fears together with cultural/societal fear related to my body as a mother in relation to my children’s bodies.

Naoise is so so beautiful. I am guessing that all mothers think this about their own children. I love seeing him naked, gazing upon him. His body is so familiar to me. I have two sons, so willies are a constant source of fascination to them and myself. Naoise thought for a long time that I did have a willy it was just tucked up inside I was interested in the fact that he was concerned that I was different that he thought there was something missing from my body….a lack. He often says “mummy we are the same” in a questioning voice.

The piece of work that you describe above sounds amazing Frances, look forward to seeing it realised.